


ablaze

by wrenkos



Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Kakusei | Fire Emblem: Awakening
Genre: Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, Gen, Spoilers, birthday fic, it's 420 and we're blazing it but not how you'd think
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-21
Updated: 2018-04-21
Packaged: 2019-04-25 17:10:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 687
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14383209
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wrenkos/pseuds/wrenkos
Summary: April 20th was the day Lucina was born.





	ablaze

**Author's Note:**

> spoilers! tw for fires and death

4.20.

April 20th.

April 20th was the day Lucina was born.

On Lucina’s second birthday — the first time around — she was happy. She was oblivious, she was born into a family that taught her to love, taught her to cry, taught her to fight for her halidom and her cause.

On Lucina’s second birthday — the second time around — she knew what was to come.

  


On her 16th birthday, her parents were gone, everyone was gone, everyone was gone, _everyone was gone._

The Shepherds, burned to the ground, scattered to ash, bloodied and battered and some not even in one piece. Some not even having time to mourn, only enough time to have their ring picked, before everything else died and died and died. Some not even having a proper burial, just another body count.

On her 16th birthday, they couldn’t celebrate because of the Risen attacking the place they called home. Her, and her friends, the people she still could call family, the second generation that had to deal with a world of trouble, left to fight.

On her 16th birthday, the surrounding towns were burned aflame; a candle caught fire, the innocent citizens killed. They didn’t deserve it, she knew, she knew, she knew.

She knew.

And she couldn’t do anything to stop it.

 

 

Laurent set fire to another one of the attackers, Inigo ran another through with his sword, Gerome flew onwards and picked them off with the flap of Minerva's wings echoing throughout the battlefield, Cynthia redoubling her already enthusiastic efforts.

As enthusiastic as one could be when faced with death and war and death and war and death and war and and and—

She narrowly dodged a blow to the shoulder and kept fighting.

None of her friends had died. Morgan was researching ways to send them back, send them back to the past, send them back to a time before Grima had taken the life she had and ripped it apart; brought it to bits and pieces and set her happiness and chances at living an ordinary life aflame.

 

 

Lucina was scared that one day she would celebrate — ha! “Celebrate” — her birthday alone.

Nowadays, with the world burned and ragged and with the smell of death in the air, wherever you went, it was hard to stay positive. She got pats on the backs, handshakes, the offer to spar once again.

As her parents had been ripped away from her, her birthday spirit had, too. She enjoyed the times spent together in their tents, in the moments where someone else was on watch and she could relax with her friends, with her family.

(When the fears didn’t come and eat at her brain, of course.)

Yes, they had a fraction more food than they usually did upon her birthday dinner, but behind the smiles and the hugs and what little gifts were left that they could afford that could be given and received, they all knew. They all knew what they didn’t know.

They all knew that perhaps, perhaps — perhaps, there wouldn’t be any birthdays for someone there by the time the next year rolled around.

 

 

It is not her birthday, but she smells the remains of a fire in the air. Blazing ashes, and what remains of a bright fire that consumed, that ravaged and destroyed.  

“Alright,” Morgan says, “You first, Lucina. This should bring us to the past.”

“And I,” Laurent adjusts his hat — his mother’s hat, she knows, the one that fell upon him when she jumped in front of an arrow before his very eyes, “Will be right behind you.”

She puts on her mask.

 

 

Laurent is not right behind her.

No, quite the opposite.

Nobody is behind her but the fires and the people who have the same face as those she grew up with. 

 

 

Lucina is alone. 

 _Lucina is alone._  

She has always feared that one day she will celebrate her birthdays alone, but she had prayed it would never happen. 

 

 

Lucina celebrates her birthday alone, with the war over and knowing another will come. 

Fate is cruel, she thinks. 

Fate is cruel, she knows. 

 

**Author's Note:**

> uwu


End file.
